


Opportunity Knocked

by runningondreams



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: M/M, post-game fic, small alien children make an appearance, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 02:29:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11049423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningondreams/pseuds/runningondreams
Summary: For the prompt "What Might Have Been," Scott and Gil a few years down the line, still learning about each other. Concerns potential choices Ryder makes toward the end of Gil's romance arc.





	Opportunity Knocked

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the @meflashfanwork May Challenge: What Might Have Been, and concerns potential endgame choices for Gil’s romance arc in Mass Effect Andromeda. Spoilers, obviously. Many thanks to @laireshi and @morphia-writes for beta and hand-holding. Enjoy!

 

Scott should’ve realized it sooner. He _should_ have. He just… wasn’t really paying attention, if he’s honest with himself. He’s always busy, when they visit the colonies—meetings, missions, new contacts to make, repair part lists to check and double-check. Everyone has something they want from him, some favor, some resource, some pathfinding they’re not quite willing to go do themselves, even though they’ve been on the planet for years now.

He was _busy_. It’s his father’s excuse and here he is, holding the bitter, thorny growth of it where he’d sworn he’d never let it root. Maybe he didn’t _want_ to know. Maybe he’d thought it was _easier_ if he didn’t know and so he just never looked.

He’s looking now. Gil is crouching in the dirt with a few of the colony kids, mostly human and angara, helping them build some kind of tower out of pieces of scrap. The base is almost ten feet wide and the top climbs higher than any of the kids can reach alone. There’s a look on Gil’s face that Scott doesn’t see enough. He’s smiling, relaxed and open and indulgent all at once. He looks entirely content with himself. And Scott knows, in that moment: he’s been missing something. Been missing it for years now.

Gil grins at him as he draws close, affectionate but distracted, half his attention still held apart.

“Hey Scott,” he says, and then he turns back to the kids. “Hey, do you guys want to show the Pathfinder what we’re doing? Do you think we’re ready?”

“We’ll never be ready,” says one little turian, still staring down the tower.

“Yes we will, we _are_ ready,” says purple angaran girl. She gives the turian a shoulder punch as the others join in with more affirmations and excited yelling until a sandy-haired human boy says. “As long as Gil thinks it’s good enough?”

“I think you guys are definitely read for another test,” Gil tells them, and they cheer. Even the turian looks hopeful.

Gil stands, brushing off his pants and shooing kids away from the tower structure, saying things like “Come on, you know the drill,” and “places, positions, let’s go, has anyone gone to tell Frash?” until they’ve formed a long pair of lines framing the tower.

“Over here,” he says, and Scott finds himself guided a bit to the side and behind the tower. “Wouldn’t want that pretty face of yours hit by flying shrapnel.”

“What is it?” Scott asks.

“Structural engineering assignment. They’ve been working on it all day,” Gil says, eyes still on the gauntlet line. “One no-starter and three rebuilds, but they’re getting it.”

A small figure appears at the other end, one of the new krogan toddlers. She sets her stance, lowers her head, and charges down the open path.

“What are--”

“Shhh,” Gil squeezes his hand. “Did no one ever teach you patience is a virtue?”

The krogan hits the tower head-on, and the whole crowd seems to hold their breath—the kids, Gil, Scott even catches himself doing it.

She bursts through the other side of the structure, scattering packing material, bits of corroded machinery and what looks like a salarian chestplate before her. The tower shudders, then holds in a ragged arch.

“It worked!” the little turian yells with one of the biggest turian smiles Scott has ever seen, and then he and Gil are mobbed by the entire group and an endless repetition of “Did you see? It worked! Pathfinder, Gil, did you see that? Frash was like arrrrrrgh and then--”

He gets swept up in it, in their excitement and Gil’s and for a while he forgets that he was worried at all. It’s only later, when they’re walking alone at the edge of the settlement and Gil says something about angaran growth rates that he remembers.

He stops walking, and his expression must look strange because Gil’s puzzled look quickly turns to concern.

“Everything alright?” he asks.

Scott makes himself keep his head up. He won’t look away now.

“You really wanted that kid, didn’t you,” he says. It isn’t a question.

Gil sort of freezes in place, even his expression going a bit stiff, and then he sighs and his face smooths out.

“Does it really matter?” he asks.

“Of course it--” Scott realizes his voice is rising and cuts himself off before he’s full-on shouting. “Of course it matters, Gil, why would you think it doesn’t matter?”

Gil shrugs, the picture of nonchalance.

“Because it wasn’t right for you and it wasn’t right for us, so it’s done. Over. Really, really not an issue here.”

“I just watched you go into dad-mode with a bunch of random children and you _loved it_ , how is that not an issue?”

Gil crosses his arms and tilts his head to the side, one eyebrow rising.

“Are you saying _you_ want kids now?”

“No! I--” Scott rubbed the bridge of his nose. “No, I still think, the things we do, the life we lead is too...and I’m barely holding down having a life as it is, I won’t do to a kid what my dad did to me and Sara, but. I don’t want to be what stands between you and something you want.”

Gil huffs a laugh.

“You’re not. No seriously,” he puts his hands on Scott’s shoulders, solid and reassuring. “Stop with that face. Scott. I made a decision. I chose you. Okay? I chose _you._ ”

He looks so sincere, but there’s something gnawing in Scott’s belly now, doubt cutting sharp like teeth in his spine.

“And what,” he says, “I’m supposed to believe that means you don’t want to be a dad anymore? That’s not the sort of thing that just goes away, Gil.”

“Hey, we said total honesty, right? If I thought it was a problem, I’d say something. But it’s not, because you’re what I want.” He squeezes Scott’s shoulders. “More than anything else. If you ever decide you want to add another member to this little family I will be behind that all the way but _you_ , Scott. You’re enough for me. Just you. Okay?”

“Okay.” Scott nods. It still shocks him sometimes, how Gil can just _say_ these things, out loud and on a moment’s notice. It never fails to give him goosebumps. “Okay.”

“You sure you’re believing me here?”

“Yeah, I—yes. And Gil you know that I—that you’re, um.” He puts his hands to Gil’s waist, urging him closer as if that can somehow help him get the words out. “You’re the most important thing I’ve got out here. You and Sara. And I’m not risking either of you if I can help it.”

“Good to know,” Gil says, grinning. He cups the back of Scott’s neck in his palm with one hand, a steady warmth. “Got any other crises I can avert before dinner?”

“No,” Scott grins back. “I’m good.”

“Damn right you are,” Gil says, and pulls him in for a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr, here: [Opportunity Knocked](http://imaginaryelle.tumblr.com/post/161257867290/fic-opportunity-knocked-1k).


End file.
